Working with Resists - Flour Paste

I remember my first experiment with flour paste. It was in Sidney Jostes' garage in the suburbs of Chicago. We were having a resist play day and it was my first time using some of the resists.  I applied flour paste to a pole-wrapped piece of fabric.  Once dry, I unwrapped it and applied liquid dyes.  The resulting cloth was gorgeous, but some of the flour paste stuck to the cloth and I never could get it out. I learned an important lesson that day - make sure to get all of the flour residue off the cloth before you put it in the dryer.

Flour resist is great because it is very inexpensive and most of us have flour on hand, so there is no need to make a special trip to the store or place an internet order.  And you can use almost any variety.  There are subtle differences between whole wheat, all purpose and bread flour, but they all will work. (The whole wheat can be a little more difficult to remove.) I haven't tried any other grain flours (except rice), so there is a whole world of experimentation out there.

Flour resist is also very versatile.  It creates a lovely crackle pattern and it works well with most application techniques. 

Multiple layers of flour paste crackle

Flour paste leaf print

Multiple layers of flour paste resist

Rice flour resist applied with a syringe

Rice flour applied with a squeeze bottle

Peace Amidst Chaos: the background swirl was created with flour resist

Read my tips for working with resists

Read about working with sugar syrup as a resist

Read about working with acrylic medium as a resist

Read about working with oatmeal resist

Read about working with potato dextrin resist

Read about working with soy wax resist